Pet Loss Services

Mentally Positioned to Succeed - Part 1

Pet Loss - What is the Big Deal?
If you've never owned a pet, I realize the thought of a business strategy for Pet Loss Services is rather challenging to embrace. Until you have personally encountered this type of companionship loss or witnessed a friend or acquaintance struggle through their time of grief, the typical response is, "What is the big deal?" From a business standpoint, you might be thinking how could you flirt with the thought of potentially jeopardizing the value of your existing services (for Humans) by integrating memorial care for pets? What would the community think if they knew you gave the exact same care for the loss of a family pet as you did for the loss of any other family member? Just in case you find yourself admitting this type of thought (maybe even skipping over this article), I'm going to ask that you hold your reaction until the end of this journey together.

Mentally Positioned to Succeed
It is essential that as you reflect on the topic of Pet Loss, you keep in mind something that we all learned early in our funeral career…It's all about the living. The typical conversation of Pet Loss becomes fixated on the handling of the animal and we quickly lose sight that it is the families, the owners, "the living" who we are truly serving. Yes, the ceremony and "Celebration of Companionship" is centered on this family pet but the arrangements and decisions on how these pets will be memorialized will be the exact same people who will one day decide on how/if they use your services when someone else dies within their family. The funeral industry has long been about dignity in death and never would we trivialize human loss, nor should we find ourselves falling into this trap when it comes to a family pet. As long as we remember that we are dealing with the same grieving families, the same decision makers who are paying the bill regardless of who died, then we are mentally positioned to succeed.

Let's Drive the Traffic
A common reaction when we outline Pet Loss integration is the fear that entry into these services will alienate your core line clientele. Let's focus on overcoming any anxiety that Pet Loss business integration would compromise the integrity of your existing services. If the central strategy is to build this business model within your existing facility (managing both types of services), careful consideration will be required for the layout, flow of family traffic for the arrangement, product introduction and potential committal area for pets that would be distinctly separate from you human business. We would never encourage logistics that would publicly present parallel services where Mom is being viewed in one room while at the same time, in the adjacent room, Fluffy the poodle is being viewed. Consumer research has shown that for people who endorse Pet Loss care, if it is being conducted within a funeral home, the positioning of pet related memorial products & services needs to be distinctly separate from the positioning of your human products & services. The strategy of integrating Human and Pet Loss services must focus on utilizing your expertise (and yes…facility) in directing and coordinating meaningful memorial services for both audiences. The careful design of integration is more about positioning memorial services that create synergies and extend your level of care to all members of the family, including pets. Business owners across the country are looking for ways in which to drive traffic and expose their facility, staff and services to a growing consumer audience. Our mission together is to show off what truly differentiates your total business experience. We've all dedicated countless hours of energy and financial resources to drive traffic through our place of business and let's face it, how many times in a career are we presented with a business opportunity like Pet Loss services that is growing in demand but only a few supply the service?

It Starts with Awareness
Once you have mentally accepted the pet loss opportunity, the next step in making this a successful venture is to build community awareness. As I shared in an earlier article titled "The Industry is Going to the Dogs", when Matthews Cremation commissioned consumer research on this particular topic, it was fascinating to witness how most pet owners had no idea where to go for services other than disposal at the time of their pet's death. You would immediately think they would contact their Veterinarian, but they (Vets), do such a wonderful job of hiding from the subject (the old "keep it in the closet"), that the unfortunate reality is the pet owners have no idea what to do at the time of their pet's death. Pet owners have no comprehension about options for memorial services, meaningful products, where to go and who is going to be their service provider. The key to our success is not to hide from the subject but to make it an integral part of our total marketing message. There are several ways to achieve this service awareness and I would recommend the following "touch points" ideas within your existing facility. The most "non-threatening" approach is through internal signage that announces your support of the "Celebration of Companionship" and the fact that at a family's time of loss you are there to help and that they (pet owners) are not alone!

Whether you strategically position this visual awareness in your lobby, lounge or arrangement area (or all of the above), the key is soft integration that begins telling your story and allowing family/friends the opportunity of knowing that you are there to serve all members of the family. Much like we have done in positioning funeral service as a Celebration of Life, with pets, let's focus on this special bond of companionship and let it become the foundation for our success as we focus on building community awareness with these services.

Back to basics - Education first
History has shown that education (or lack of) tends to influence success and failure in the majority of business ventures (there is the occasional good luck). If we relate this to our own industry and track the influences behind the struggle most funeral professionals experience in serving the growing trend of cremation, it all tends to point back to the job we are doing in providing education prior to the death. As an industry, we will continue to swim up stream if we try and make the point of educating a family at the time of death. Time and time again, we witness funeral professionals introducing services for the first time to a family while they (the family) are trying to deal with this emotional loss. That's a tough hurdle for anyone! Our industry continues to make great progress in building service awareness through handouts, video, marketing pieces, etc… and we would certainly not suggest reinventing the wheel when it comes to offering these "touch points" on the topic of Pet Loss.

         

The example of these "take away" brochures or as some might identify as "counter cards", break the discussion of Pet Loss into two phases, Service and Arrangements and Memorial Products. Since we are a service driven industry, we need to identify for pet owners the wealth of choices when it comes to memorializing their loss. Certainly we facilitate the discussion of disposition which just like services for humans can include Cemetery burial (if locally available) or Cremation (currently 75% of all pet dispositions). Your services may include removal, care and grooming (not typically embalming), viewing/visitation, limo, reception and music…obviously all dictated by space and capability.

When the discussion transitions to memorial products, certainly the traditional choices of urns carry significance, but equally powerful are video tributes, stationery, keepsakes and garden memorials. The most important concept to remember is when it comes to memorializing a family pet the definition of meaningful and appropriate is as diverse as any other type of personal & emotional decision. The key to our success is to not limit our perception of what pet owners truly desire but embrace the possibilities that mirror their endless love and affection for this special companion. Once again, now we are getting "Mentally Positioned to Succeed".

In Part II of this series, we'll discuss the utilization of "on-line" resources to target this audience plus examples of consumer media and network strategies when it comes to the development of your own Pet Loss business. Steven Schaal is the division manager - Sales and Marketing for the Matthews Cremation Division. He can be reached at sschaal@matw.com.